The Belize National Teacher’s Union held the government and people of Belize hostage for 11 days last year because they wanted the government to implement a number of measures against corruption. In fact the BNTU was one of the primary movers back in 2007 that caused the government at the time, under Said Musa to back down from taking a bill to the National Assembly for the Belizean people to pay for a 33 million dollar guarantee which had been given to the owners of UHS, a private hospital.

Now it is odd, that after two weeks of silence, that Elena Smith in her capacity of president of the BNTU has said that the government must pay the 90 million plus debt. While Smith acknowledges that the matter must be voted on in parliament, she says that the government has a responsibility to pay the debt.

We are not certain how she can reconcile the fact that as an anti-corruption advocate the UHS matter is in fact the embodiment of corruption as the people have a bill to pay for with absolutely nothing to show. It was just Musa’s government who decided that the people should shoulder the debt.

And while Smith has said that GOB should pay, there is no indication as to where the money will come from.